The paper aimed to identify and analyze the explanatory variables for airlines productivity during 2000 2005, by testing the Pearson correlation between the single factor productivity capital, energy and labor of a sample of 45 selected international airlines (4 Brazilian carriers among them) and their productivity explanatory variables like medium stage length, aircraft load factor, hours flown and cruise speed for selected routes besides aircraft seat configuration and airlines number of employees. The research demonstrated, that a set of variables can explain differences in productivity for passenger airlines, such as: investment in personnel training processes, automation, airplane seat density, occupation of aircraft, average flight stage length, density and extension of routes, among others.
